Drive-thru Challenged

Anyone familiar with my eating habits knows that I am no stranger to the drive-thru. However, in recent months drive-thrus have become more challenging than I ever dreamed they could be.

Not since the days of 2-3 year old Bayley (who would ever so insistently request, loudly, a biscuit. Her little mouth however did not form the word biScuit but rather BigTi - well you can figure the rest)have I suffered such confusion at the drive-thru window.

We discuss the order to placed as we wait to speak into the frustrating little speaker box and we are all agreed on the plan, confident that each will be provided for. But somehow the minute I start talking Sedona panics and is sure that her order will be forgotten! So she chimes in, loudly, repeating things I've already listed. The poor soul on the other end of the speaker box doesn't stand a chance at accurately entering the orders. So we add and subtract and clarify and subtract an item again and then put on back on with no pickles and around and around we go.

Only to then realize after we've pulled to the window and handed over our money that in all the hubbub we removed one too many child-sized drinks. Arg.

Now, I have experience in this field. Not only is my own order often obnoxious in its specifity, but I also deal with it much more frequently than Jeremy, who is already drive-thru averse. If it can't be ordered entirely with numbers, ("I'll take a #2, #4 and 2 #5's please. All with Dr. Pepper. Yes that's all.") then it is already more trouble than it is worth to him. But this recent added confusion might just be enough to send him over the edge. Stay tuned.

**** A special note: This post was actually written umm, yeah close to a year ago, and somehow never posted. But I am happy to report that all have survived and grown more accustomed to the ways of the drive-thru window. Little ones have calmed and learned to trust that they probably won't starve and probably won't be served sheep's head. Plus, in an effort to become better people we don't see the drive-thru nearly as often as some of us might like to. ******

Imagining Invisible Friends

While the boy always had an affinity for tiny invisible friends, ones that would sit on the tip of your finger or be inadvertently (however routinely) squished by unsuspectig family members, Sedona's invisible world is not so invisible.

Sedona's imaginary friend looks remarkably like Sedona. Her name is "Sedona-seeka-lolla" which I imagine has some significance in Sedona-ese. A little blond girl wanders in and asks "Have you seen Sedona? I am her friend from school, Sedona-seeka-lolla." And I, of course, play along. Sedona-seeka-lolla and I talk for awhile about what kind of girl Sedona is, about tiny pink cats (a favorite in these parts of imaginaryland) and eventually she excuses herself to some other more important engagement. Moments later Sedona comes back into the room and says something like, "Hey, Mama. Have there been any girls here looking for me? What did they say? Where did they go?". There are also many many phone calls from long since disconnected and repurposed cellphones in which I am left to sort out whether it is Sedona calling me, her mother, or Sedona-seeka-lolla calling for Sedona. It is ever so confusing.

It is great fun and fortunately for me, not to the complete exclusion of tiny invisible creatures (with which I have some experience). She still carries a tiny pink cat in her hand every now and then. Not to mention the adventures of Sedona-ese.

She loves to draw and at the just-now 4 year mark, doesn't always capture the world in an easily recognizable fashion. So I say something encouraging and very nurturing like "That is lovely, Sedona (assuming it is, in fact, Sedona I am speaking with at that moment). I like all the different colors you used. What is it?"

The answer?
"smicka googa lolla seeka loo".

Ahh yes. How could I not have known?
Maybe we've been reading too much Dr. Suess. She always has enjoyed "On Beyond Zebra" which explores a few dozen invented letters and sounds that are used to describe much more interesting things than our sorry ol' 26 ever could.

Coolest kids ever?

The sketch solicited for Mother's Day. . . .
I can't not share. . .

Mama-mania

On the eve of Mother's Day I am presented with THE perfect Mother's Day present. Well, presents. Jeremy and the kids ventured to U City today and did some walking and some shopping and some eating of giant burritos. What their little adventure yielded though is a greater inspiration than they might have guessed.

In addition to an incredible caricature sketch of the kids, some rockin cds, and a lovely new windchime (for the wind took my earlier chimes away, tearing the strings, leaving silver tubes scattered across the yard), I got a book. Mamaphonic.

It is a collection of essays that insist that creativity does not die with the onset of mothering, but rather can truly begin. They are essays (the 4 I've already devoured anyway) that tell tales of creativity and perseverance with little ones. Scatter brained toddler years that put some artistic pursuits on hold while often birthing new ones. All the while the mind and heart of a writer, poet, artist, critic, dancer, lives on and grows into a newer, usually better, writer, poet, artist, critic, dancer.

Anyone who has spent time caring for young children knows how quickly the mind seems to go soft. How quickly the possibility of intelligent, coherent conversations with adults become impossible. How quickly the ability to form witty, or even intelligible, sentences seems to leave you.

I know this place. I know the lurking, stinking suspicion that the artist/writer/dreamer/thinker that once filled this skin has been replaced by a somewhat poorly kept, slightly larger, slightly sleepier, slightly stupider version of her former self.

I know the silly girl dreaming of greatness, sure that she was marked for something grand - just never sure quite what. And sometimes too sure that it wasn't this.

And then I stumble on moments that fall into places I didn't know had been left empty, gaping and without purpose or sweetness. I find wonderment again. I find an imagination again. I find out that this greatness is so much more.

I find the time somehow just before bed to go rambling on here. I find that my scattered brain may have just straightened itself out a bit - or at least scattered itself into something more adventuresome. I find a beginning.

And with this one silly book, I find a dream I had long since abandonned. A dream I had threatened to loose. A dream of being a mom who thinks, a mom who is still a whole person and not the barren rind of a cantalope, all its juicy sweetness sucked out, a shriveled empty remnant of what was, for a moment, something wonderful. A dream of being a mom who creates or at least basks in, if nothing else, wonder and excitement.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms who do just that in their very own ways. happy Mother's Day to one mom who believed I could too.

I CAN be taught!

So I went back into the previous post and with patient guidance from dearest husband, I learned to embed links.

Here, have another one:

Our other blog, (while sporadically tended), can be found at Sentralized Nuliks.

It chronicles a bit of our spiritual adventures and the details of our work with/on SENTralized this past year. There will also be a new SENTralized blog up shortly that is a public forum for all those interested in or involved with SENTralized, giving equal voice to any who can find their way to the keyboard as opposed to my voice telling the stories all the time. Should be welcome addition to our bloghappy bunch.

Help yourself, too, to the SENTralized site.

Enjoy!

Is my insanity showing?

For those of you who might have followed the afore mentioned directive from Mr. CEO* . . Here is a short list of favorite posts to keep you busy and give just a brief glimpse of what kinds of shenanigans we are typically up to around here. And yes, I am buying time to write something new. And no, I do not know how to embed links so you'll have to kick it old school on these.

Huge Butt

It isn't funny . . .

Who knew?

"Just kinda makes me, like, . ."

Ummm, well you see, I . . .

"I'll just, you know, protect the world from bad people."



Read on, brave ones!
More soon,
Jana

Busted. . .

I've fallen away.
Terribly, embarassingly, away. . . .
from this blog anyway. Though life here has hurried on.

While I figured you all (careful there - not ya'll) had long since abandonned hope. Then just this morning I notice on Jeremy's new blog a directive sending folks here!

You can imagine not only my surprise but certainly the frenzied writing that must ensue.

Rather than substance though you are left here with me talking about talking. Ah such beautiful meta-narratives.

So what has been happening here?
In bullets with promises to elaborate in the near (yes NEAR) future:
-The boy scouts.
-The girl lip synchs and dares us to consider submission to America's Funniest Videos
-Jana sunburns then blisters then sunburns then blisters. . . .
-Jeremy writes and sends Jana into a frenzy.

But really, things are good - in that "goooood" with a sigh kind of way. Life marches on and the kids are bigger and the days seem busier but really, we are having fun.

At a wedding recently, we commented to the Father of the Bride that he looked like he was a really good dad after seeing the slieshows showing him being, well, what looked like a really good dad (attentive, silly, thrilled with said daughter. present. . .)to which he smiled and replied, "I had a lot of fun."

And we just keep thinking today and tomorrow - don't miss the fun. This is the fun stuff. Slow down or run faster - doesn't matter. Enjoy one another.

And so we do.